Republic Day 2006 Event

BITSAA Pune Get Together held on Republic Day 2006

By Pankaj Khandelwal

Pune was battered by the incessant rains for past several weeks. Roads were wash out of the crumbling city and a threat of floods was looming large. The get together venue which was open on either sides and the date of the event itself was questioned by certain members fearing that rain might wash out the event. And as if by divine intervention, the rains halted at the dawn of 19^th August and bright Sun made a curious appearance on the horizon after a long break of 3 weeks. Even rain gods had taken notice of the BITSAA event and had arranged for a reprieve!

The BITSian junta started trickling from 7:45 pm. The registration was neatly organized and venue was open and superb. The seating arrangement was different with several small tables arranged all over the venue with each table having 5-6 chairs to seat a group for easy “leccha”. The bar served variety of soft and hard drinks along with snacks for garnishing the gossip. By 8:30 pm most of the people were seated.

Full House: BITSians reliving the old memories

A team from Aurangabad (Jadiya ‘67, Bothra ‘66, Challani) too drove down all the way 250 kms to be present at the event. Another Bitsian Vijay Kedia Mech’77, was in Pune all the way from Aurangabad but couldn’t make it to the event due to health reasons. Kudos to their Bitsian spirit!

Above team from Aurangabad at BITSAA Pune Get together.

An announcement was made about delay in arrival of chief guest Dr L K Maheshwari. So the event was kicked off with a round of introductions by all the members. Event was attended by members from first BITS batch (J N Gupta ’52) till current batch. Drinks flowed freely as snacks were served and members started introducing themselves. At about 9 pm chief guest arrived. President K A Singhal gave a brief introduction of LK Maheshwari before inviting him to address the gathering. Prof Maheshwari began with thanking the Pune chapter and gave an elaborate update on BITS. He dwelled upon new admission procedure, new campuses, new courses, new collaborations the BITS is undertaking. He also shared his views on the influence that educational institutions such as BITS can have in shaping new age industry and firmly believed that BITS can do to Indian IT industry what Stanford did to Silicon Valley in its nascent days,

Seen above are L to R: S R Rathi, M Sen, K A Singhal, Prof LK Maheshwari, Sukhdev Ganotra, Mrs. Maheshwari and P N Dujari.

BR Natarajan, Dean DLPD also shared his views on expanded BITS family and proposed that all the BITS degree holders be included in BITSAA fold. He highlighted that BITSians in Pune alone are in 4 digit numbers if we were to account for people undergoing BITS programs at various companies and institutes in and around Pune..

The dinner was sumptuous and provided time for Alumni to mingle and interact over. Tambola and Quiz were called off due to shortage of time. However, that didn’t make the evening any less enjoyable. Vote of thanks was given by Sukhdev Ganotra thanking Prof Maheshwari for gracing the event and also to all other members.